Red Hat announced on Friday the sourcing of a high-performance communication tool for hosted virtual desktops.

The world’s leading authority in open source solutions, Red Hat has open sourced its SPICE (Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environment) hosted virtual desktop protocol, to bring its partners innovative virtualization solutions. SPICE, previously released in beta, will be expanded in an effort to break down barriers to virtualization adoption.

“By open sourcing this technology, we are allowing our industry partners and the community to contribute to the future of virtualization with us,” said Brian Stevens, CTO and vice president Engineering at Red Hat.

Designed specifically for virtual environments, SPICE enhances user experience for multi-media and VoIP applications, by adapting to the graphics and communications environment that is running in.
Although open sourcing technologies are the core of Red Hat’s business model, virtual desktop technology is still in its early days.

“Red Hat’s delivery of the open source SPICE protocol is an important step toward the goal of interoperability for the industry’s heterogeneous virtualization solutions,” agreed Daniel Frye, vice president, Open Systems Development, IBM.

SPICE is one of three main technology components included in Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops, a solution set currently in a private beta with general availability expected in 2010.

When you use the phrase “labor shortage” or “skills shortage” you’re speaking in a sentence fragment. What you actually mean to say is: “There is a labor shortage at the salary level I’m willing to pay.” That statement is the correct phrase; the complete sentence and the intellectually honest statement.

Some people speak about shortages as though they represent some absolute, readily identifiable lack of desirable services. Price is rarely accorded its proper importance in their discussion.

If you start raising wages and improving working conditions, and continue doing so, you’ll solve your shortage and will have people lining up around the block to work for you even if you need to have huge piles of steaming manure hand-scooped on a blazing summer afternoon.

And if you think there’s going to be a shortage caused by employees retiring out of the workforce: Guess again: With the majority of retirement accounts down about 50% or more, most people entering retirement age are working well into their sunset years. So, you won’t be getting a worker shortage anytime soon due to retirees exiting the workforce.

Some specialized jobs require training and/or certification, again, the solution is higher wages and improved benefits. People will self-fund their re-education so that they can enter the industry in a work-ready state. The attractive wages, working conditions and career prospects of technology during the 1980’s and 1990’s was a prime example of people’s willingness to self-fund their own career re-education.

There is never enough of any good or service to satisfy all wants or desires. A buyer, or employer, must give up something to get something. They must pay the market price and forego whatever else he could have for the same price. The forces of supply and demand determine these prices — and the price of a skilled workman is no exception. The buyer can take it or leave it. However, those who choose to leave it (because of lack of funds or personal preference) must not cry shortage. The good is available at the market price. All goods and services are scarce, but scarcity and shortages are by no means synonymous. Scarcity is a regrettable and unavoidable fact.

Shortages are purely a function of price. The only way in which a shortage has existed, or ever will exist, is in cases where the “going price” has been held below the market-clearing price.